Life in tiny, slow, quiet bits...

The sun burns hot and the smell of the new mown grass pulls hard. I sit with my knees and chest soaking up the heat. All around are the many signs of the glorious Florida summer...tiny iridescent green flies with lavender wings, yellow jackets diligently boring into the fence post, feverfew growing four and five feet tall around the deck, fat cardinals gauging ways to sneak around me to get to the feeder, and a giant, shiny brown dragon fly that sweeps me away as I imagine being a fairy princess riding along on his back.

There's American Beauty berries shining in the sun, confederate jasmine, and honeysuckle blending their scent pleasantly with the cut grass. I watch the sun tea grow more golden in the heat. I am impatient to taste it's sweet bitterness over ice. Baby birds in nests all around make their presence known begging for mom or dad to bring some goodies. A fat, bright red male cardinal sits in the ancient camellia tree waiting to see if I leave his feeding territory. He drops to the ground and gives me the evil eye. Mama flies right by him, lands on the feeder not five feet away, grabs a beak full and shows dad how it's done. She is so proud of herself!

It's been four years since I even took a look here. I am not sure a "blog" is my talent. I still draw, color, and paint my tiny dots. Chronic illness has taken over a bit and my world has been shaken recently by a particularly bad spell. I am moving into a semi-retired state of day-job work-being and we are looking for a smaller, tidier place to spend our days and nights. 

Though summer is here, the gardenias have a long way to go yet. This is a fantasy rendition of a photo taken by a friend of a gardenia in low light. In the reference photo, the petals are an almost tan color. I chose pink. This has been an ongoing experiment with watercolor washes, splatters, ink, colored pencil, more watercolor, more colored pencil, etc. It's a thoroughly enjoyable work-in-progress.

May your days be filled with warm sun and your nights with bright stars.